intervention strategies for renovation of social housing estates

Laurentino38. Example of deprived social housing estates in Rome. Chapter 7
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7.1.2 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
ROME
As mentioned in the introduction and in Chapter 3, the social housing stock in Rome is large
and very diverse. The neighbourhoods differ in terms of age, location, urban layout, building
types and constructive technologies. This is a result of the national and local policies at that
time. Most of the public housing stock in Italy was built after the Second World War. It was
estimated that 1.9 million dwellings were destroyed and 5 millions seriously damaged of
more than 30 million present before the conflict. Destruction due to the war, migration to the
big cities and significant population growth, were the main factors causing a great demand
for housing (Di Giulio in Andeweg, 2007).
In the early post war years, national institutes and laws had a central role in encouraging
provision of dwellings and expansion of most of the cities. Cleary, the city of Rome therefore
supported the building of Laurentino38 in late post-wars years.
To better understand the context in which Laurentino38 was designed and built, a brief
introduction to the main historical developments of the city of Rome is here provided. There
are four main periods to be distinguished:
before WWII (up to the 1930s)
early post-war (up to the late 1950s)
late post-war (up to the early 1860s)
early 1980.
Until the ‘30s, the city grew within the so-called ‘consolidated’ borders. The public
interventions in the building sector were very limited and other institutes played the role of
the government itself. The building activity was mainly carried out by big co-operatives,
INCIS 7 and IACP 8 (Bossalino, 1992).
Most of these neighbourhoods were designed using the so-called ‘Barocchetto Romano’ (late
Roman baroque) style. Although the estates were mainly built for low-income people and
thus required cheap materials, those buildings were decorated with details inspired to the
past. Therefore, these blocks fitted the city quite well.
In the ’30s, with the rise of purism in building shapes, the accuracy in details was lost
together with a decrease in applied quality of materials and constructive processes.
Interventions were implemented in semi-rural areas and people forcedly moved from the city
centre 9 .
Comparing to the previous decades, in the 1950s the city tripled its size. In those years,
there were two urban conditions: the workers’ city (‘illegal’ or ‘abusive’ city) and the middleclass
city (Bossalino, 1992). The first, with spontaneous and peripheral neighbourhoods, was
controlled by illegal rules. It resulted in an uncontrolled peripheral growth. Although most of
them were demolished or renovated during the 1960s, the illicit building process continued
for a long time.
The IACP produced 216.000 dwellings (between 1946 and 1950) over the country, but the
true rise in building volume occurred in the beginning of the 1950’s with the National Plan
INA-Casa 10 . As a part of the Employment Act (law n.43 28/02/1949), its objective was to
realize houses at controlled rents and increase the “blue-collar employment”.
For two consecutive periods of seven years, the programme was developed at national level
(di Biagi, 2001). The first period (1949-1956) was characterized by the use of traditional
7 INCIS is the acronym of Istituto Nazionale per le Case degli Impiegati dello Stato (National Institute for State
employees housing).
8 The co-operatives have been active in the construction for low-income housing before the foundation of the IACP
(1903). Between 1872 and 1900, they built Celio, Tiburtino, S. Croce and Porta Maggiore.
INCIS constructed housing for the middle-class employed by the government (Piazza Verbano), while IACP for lowincome
people (S.Saba, Testaccio, Monte Sacro and Garbatella).
9 In this period, the city centre was subjected to large demolition programs to make space for the new buildings of the
fascism. People living in those areas were moved to the new semi-rural suburbs which were planned as a kind of
independent satellite cities.
10 INA-Casa is the Piano incremento occupazione operaia. Case per lavoratori (Programme to improve the working
class employment rate. Social Housing). INA-Casa, and afterwards GESCAL, were the two national public agencies
managing public housing in Italy.
10. G
BEFORE WWII
EARLY POST-WAR II